1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a method of driving an image pickup apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image pickup apparatus proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-270658, two output circuits are arranged by being shifted by a pitch of arrangement of one photodiode in a row direction and in a column direction. Further, the output circuits respectively mix signal electric charges of four photodiodes around the respective output circuits. With such a configuration, an optical low-pass filter is not required.
Further, in an image pickup apparatus disclosed in US Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0133590, four transfer transistors are connected to a shared photodiode, and an electric charge of one photoelectric conversion unit is simultaneously transferred to four diffusion regions. Further, FIG. 6 of US Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0133590 discloses that the image quality is improved although the pixel size is increased and the resolution is decreased, by adding, in an information processing block, values obtained from adjacent pixels.